1st Edition
Companions in Guilt Arguments in Metaethics
Comparisons between morality and other ‘companion’ disciplines – such as mathematics, religion, or aesthetics – are commonly used in philosophy, often in the context of arguing for the objectivity of morality. This is known as the ‘companions in guilt’ strategy. It has been the subject of much debate in contemporary ethics and metaethics.
This volume, the first full length examination of companions in guilt arguments, comprises an introduction by the editors and a dozen new chapters by leading authors in the field. They examine the methodology of companions in guilt arguments and their use in responding to the moral error theory, as well as specific arguments that take mathematics, epistemic norms, or aesthetics as a ‘companion’, and the use of the companions in guilt strategy to vindicate claims to moral knowledge.
Companions in Guilt Arguments in Metaethics is essential reading for advanced students and researchers working in moral theory and metaethics, as well as those in epistemology and philosophy of mathematics concerned with the intersection of these subjects with ethics.
Introduction Part 1: Methodology 1. Companions in Guilt: Entailment, Analogy, and Absorbtion Hallvard Lillehammer 2. Two Kinds of Companion in Guilt Louise Hanson Part 2: Normativity and Error Theory 3. Moral and epistemic normativity: The guilty and the innocent Richard Joyce 4. Metaethics Out of Speech Acts? Moral Error Theory and the Possibility of Speech Jonas Olson 5. The Prudential Companions-in-Guilt Objection to Moral Error Theory Wouter Kalf Part 3: Alternative Companions: Mathematics and Aesthetics 6. Objectivity and Evaluation Justin Clarke-Doane 7. Moral Pluralism and Companions in Guilt Ramon Das 8. Contemporary Work on Debunking Arguments in Morality and Mathematics Christopher Cowie 9. Aesthetic properties, mind-independence, and companions in guilt Daan Evers Part 4: Moral Epistemology 10. Ethics and Perception: Two Kinds of Quasi-Realism James Lenman 11. Companions in Guilt Arguments in the Epistemology of Moral Disagreement Rach Cosker-Rowland 12. Companions in Love: Iris Murdoch on Attunement in the Condition of Moral Realism Anna Bergqvist. Index
Biography
Christopher Cowie is an Assistant Professor in Philosophy at the University of Durham, UK. His book The Repugnant Conclusion: A Philosophical Inquiry is forthcoming with Routledge.
Rach Cosker-Rowland is an Associate Professor in the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science at the University of Leeds, UK. They are author of The Normative and the Evaluative: The Buck-Passing Account of Value (2019), and Moral Disagreement (Routledge, 2020).
